Love Is a Tired Symphony
by Wheel of Fish
Summary: An ongoing collection of E/C vignettes. Mostly fluff, some angst.
1. Spring renewal

I post prompt-based writing drabbles to Tumblr sometimes, and I thought it would be nice to keep them all here, in one place. It's rated T just to be safe, and though I don't anticipate M-rated content, I can't discount it as a possibility.

The lovely cover image (based on this chapter!) is original art by Tumblr user a-small-jar, reposted with her permission.

And if you're wondering why I'm publishing this instead of the third chapter of Restoration, I've had some writer's block lately, but rest assured that I'm working on it. :)

This first ficlet is based on a Tumblr prompt from ladycavalier: _What Erik thinks of gardening vs. what Christine thinks._

* * *

The little garden is Christine's idea.

At first, Erik has no objections. She needs her own spaces in and about their new home, just as he does, and it matters little to him what she chooses to do outside.

When she proposes that the two of them plant the garden together, however, he balks. He cannot conceive of himself among such vibrancy and softness and sun.

"Oh, but you must at least try!" she pleads, eyes bright, her delicate fingers circling his gaunt forearm. "Think of it: you would be coaxing life and beauty from little more than a plot of earth and your own two hands."

He glances down at his pale hands, at the web of tendons connecting rawboned fingers to knobby wrists. A small, frenetic laugh bubbles up in his throat. These hands have only coaxed death; they are death, affixed to a corpse as they are.

Ah, but he will do anything to please her, his Christine. And so, when it is time for planting, Erik kneels on the ground beside her, his bony kneecaps jutting into the soil, his teeth clenched as he tries not to think of the dirt and dust on his trousers. The sun beats down on his back while he hunches forward, and his face swelters under its black mask.

Christine, by contrast, is the very image of springtime. Her golden hair is tucked under a straw bonnet trimmed with cream lace, and her calico work apron is dotted with tiny pink-and-blue flower buds. She shows him how to weed and till, how to plot and plant and water.

It is worth the discomfort just to watch her—another of the countless moments in which his chest tightens at the sound of her lilting voice and the sight of her sun-pinked cheeks, until he can scarcely breathe, so convinced is he that he is living a dream.

She calls him outside when the first rose blooms, so that he might appreciate the fruits of their labor. He is pleased, and he tells her as much, but then all he can think about is how lovely she would look with the pink blossom tucked into her hair. "May I...cut it?" he asks. She smiles and nods without question.

With a small blade, his spindly fingers sever the flower at the stem. As he moves to put the rose in Christine's hair, his thumb catches on a thorn, and the skin tears. He jerks his hand back at the sight of blood, not wanting to alarm her. The blossom falls to the ground.

But she has seen. "Here, love, give me your hand," she insists. Like a child caught in the pantry, he surrenders the evidence. She presses a clean handkerchief to the cut and wraps it around the thumb.

"There," she says with a gentle pat of his hand. She bends to retrieve the rose, smiling as she slips the stem into the notch above her ear. "I assume that this was your intended purpose?"

But he scarcely hears her; he is looking at the fresh blood seeping through cloth, at the pink blossom against flaxen hair, at his wife's doting hands: all vibrant signs of life, right at his fingertips.

If nature can renew itself in perpetuity, he thinks, then perhaps he can, too.


	2. In sickness and in health

Anonymous Tumblr prompt: _Erik's got the flu and only the purest of fluff will cure him_

* * *

Christine is unnerved the moment she opens her eyes.

She is used to waking alone. This morning, however, Erik is fast asleep beside her, and his mouth is agape. He does not stir when she sits up and stretches in bed, nor when she pads around the room to slip into peignoir and slippers. His gaunt arm dangles off the edge of the mattress, and at one point she presses two fingertips to the inside of his wrist to check for a pulse.

One is present, of course. It is with equal parts guilt and relief that she slips out to assemble breakfast: traditionally his self-appointed role, but she is not inclined to wake him.

When he finally appears, he is fully dressed and seems—by all accounts—his usual self. His movements, however, are almost imperceptibly sluggish and unfocused, as though he is surrounded by a thick fog. He clears his throat. "My apologies," he says, and he avoids her gaze. "I suppose I did not sleep as soundly last night as I would have preferred." His voice of spun silk seems to catch on every breath.

"Are you feeling all right?" she asks.

"Quite. I am afraid, however, that I have somehow misplaced my shoes."

Christine blinks. "Those shoes?" She points to the gleaming black leather strapped to his feet, and she is certain that he is flushing beneath his black mask.

He manages a feeble smile. "Ah. Yes. Well spotted, my dear."

Erik is quiet during breakfast. Afterward, at her insistence, he retires to the sitting-room while she cleans up from the meal.

She finds him behind a newspaper in his favorite armchair, his reedy legs tucked in such that his kneecaps rise like dark stalagmites beneath the cover of black trousers. His head lolls against the chair back, for he is once again asleep. She slips off his mask and presses the back of her hand to his brow; it is hot, and coated in a sheen of perspiration.

He wakes up when she removes the paper from his hands, but even as he opens his mouth to fabricate an excuse, she is shaking her head. "To bed with you, monsieur," she commands. "You are clearly unwell."

"Nonsense." A skeletal hand waves her words away, and Erik springs to his feet as evidence of his claim. "The Opera ghost does not fall ill."

"The Opera ghost is not a literal spectre. You are a creature of flesh and blood, subject to the same ailments as the rest of us." She presses a hand to his chest, where white shirt is not eclipsed by dark waistcoat and his heartbeat skitters beneath her palm. She can tell from the dampness of the fabric that his skin is clammy.

"Be that as it may, my dear, I am not sick." He gently plucks her hand from his torso and returns it to her side.

"Then kiss me."

A pause. "Pardon?" he asks, but she does not miss the panic that flits across his amber eyes.

"If you are in perfect health, as you say, then you will not object to kissing me."

He falters, his mouth opening and closing several times, before he turns to exit the room. "Too much to do this morning," he mutters over his shoulder. "Mustn't waste any more time."

But Christine is fast. In an instant, she has grabbed his wrist and spun him back to face her so that she can catch his misshapen face between her palms and crush her mouth to his.

He emits a sound of protest, clutches at her hands with his own, but she does not relent. Her lips sweep against his in a slow surge of pressure. He does not reciprocate at first, but as she begins to withdraw, he catches the edge of her bottom lip in a small and intimate pull.

Erik's face darkens once they separate. "Christine!" he hisses. "Are you mad?"

"Aha! So you admit it, then."

A growl of frustration rumbles low in his throat. "Do not pretend that you were not already convinced of my guilt. What a foolish way to prove a point!"

She bites back a grin at his indignation. "Oh, come now; there is no doubt that I have already been exposed by this point. Now, if you do not get back in bed this very second, I shall be forced into further recklessness."

Against his protests, she urges him into the silk pyjamas that she special-ordered as a Christmas present, and then she tucks him into bed. There, she presses cold cloths to his brow to bring down the fever. She adds blankets later, when his body is racked with chills.

Over the next two days, Christine furnishes a steady supply of clean handkerchiefs. She rubs her husband's forearms and calves when they ache, and she draws him hot baths once his fever subsides. She makes him sleep when he is able and drink hot tea when he is not. He hates being confined to the bed, and he tells her as much, but her stern insistence keeps him in place.

When Erik's restlessness sets in, she pulls a chair to the bedside and reads to him, or she hums the Swedish folk songs that comforted her as a child. Once he is finally lulled to sleep, she lies next to him to watch as his jaw slackens and the world-weariness seems to evaporate from his hollowed cheekbones.

Finally, he emerges from the fog. He wakes to find himself lucid but alone, and he dresses to join his beloved, wherever she may be.

He finds her asleep on the loveseat, a wool blanket drawn around her like a shroud. Even under the blanket, she is shivering. Errant strands of hair are plastered to her glistening face, and her breathing is labored. "Oh, Christine," he murmurs, and he bends down to tuck the flyaways behind her ears. He presses his lips to her forehead, where they linger for several seconds.

Erik straightens. He is far from recovered, but he musters all of the strength that he can in order to lift her, blanket and all. With his fallen angel cradled against his chest, he carries her off to bed.


	3. Mittens

Tumblr prompt from ladycavalier: _Erik in mittens_

And as of today, you can hear it read aloud by the very talented lordjazor and tallestsilver on Tumblr!

* * *

A beautiful soprano visits his house now.

No matter how many times she comes to him, no matter how many times she sits patiently in his little boat as he rows it across the lake to his doorstep, no matter how many times she stands beside his piano to sing—when he considers this fact, he can scarcely believe it.

It nearly drives him to anger, the notion that his mind might play such a cruel trick on him. Whenever he extends a gaunt hand to assist her, however, she becomes a corporeal form, and it grounds him for a short while.

Today she hands him a wrapped parcel, and the solid matter beneath his fingertips is another tangible link between the two of them. His gaze flicks from the object to her face, questioning.

"A gift," she says. "For you."

A gift. A gift for Erik, the monster. Erik, the skeleton. He wants to ask why, but his tongue seems to fill his entire mouth and he is blinking back tears.

His long fingers quiver as they pick apart the brown paper wrapping. Then they extract a lump—no, two lumps—of gray wool. Mittens. He stares, unmoving, at her gift where it lies on a bed of paper atop his open palms.

"For your hands," she says, as though it is the application that confuses him. "They are always so cold." He finally looks up; her cheeks are flushed, and she quickly averts her eyes. "I made them. I have something else for you as well, almost finished, but if you do not like—"

"They are magnificent," he interjects. "I shall put them on immediately."

His hands are frigid by default, yes, but they do not actually bother him. He does not tell her as much. Instead, he slips his hands into the mittens and flexes them for show. Her eyes brighten, and he wonders how he will ever live out the night.

He wears the mittens for the entirety of her stay, and when he rows her back across the lake, it is with thick gray wool gripping wooden oars. More than once he catches her eying his hands; she seems pleased. How can he ever take off the mittens after this?

Once she is gone, however, he feels a pang of anxiety whenever he wiggles his fingers within those fleecy casings. There is something not right about the presence of the mittens, and his unease is confirmed over and over again throughout the course of the day.

He cannot play the piano, to start. He tries to write, but his grip on the pen has all the precision of a large bear. Any form of washing—clothes, dishes, his person—is out. He manages to read for all of ten minutes before he abandons his book as well, frustrated by how long it takes to paw at a page until it turns. Each mitten has become a lumpy gray prison. He resents them.

He resents them, but he is still wearing them when she returns with another parcel the following day. "The second item, as promised," she says, smiling. She wears her own mittens, which are a faded burgundy.

She watches him grope at the paper wrapping, slippery against gray wool, before she moves to assist him. "You needn't feel obligated to wear those at all times, you know." She unfurls the paper and leaves him to discover its contents: a gray scarf, clearly handmade but more than sufficient.

"I…thank you." His voice is a hoarse whisper.

"Come," she says, and she takes his gloved hand into her own. "Let us test it out, shall we?"

It is dark when they surface at the Rue Scribe, and it is snowing. When did he last see snow? He cannot recall, but he is certain that he has never seen it like this, drifting down from the heavens to dot her cloak and settle into her hair. He watches two snowflakes commence a soft, swirling pas de deux in the amber spotlight of a nearby gaslamp.

He has never understood the appeal of snow, not even as a child. But now, with her beside him, it is sheer magic. He exhales and watches his breath freeze and wishes that he could freeze time, too.

"Hold still," says the angel beside him, and she gingerly wraps the scarf around his face. It obscures much of his mask, and the tilt of his hat obscures the rest while still affording him his vision. How had he not considered this option before?

She is looking to him expectantly now. His body trembles, and he sucks in a great breath as he gazes out in the direction of the boulevard. "Mademoiselle?" he asks, extending his elbow.

A mittened hand slips into the crook of his arm, and the pair of them begin their stroll.


	4. They have their seasons so do we

Anonymous Tumblr prompts: _Erik and Christine raising a daughter_ and _Erik loses his memory._ Angst warning!

* * *

 _Spring_.

She is born on Easter Sunday, long and lean, with wisps of hair so pale and sparse that they almost resemble his own. "I see you in her," says Christine, smiling, as she passes him the swaddled infant. He accepts the babe with gaunt, shaking hands. It is the moment that has held him in terror these past eight months.

He looks into that cherubic face and sees only what could have been, had he been more fortunate: a respectable nose, perfect rosy-pink cheeks, puckered lips. Slate-gray irises study him with more alertness than he would have thought possible for such a little thing, half a day old.

"And whose eyes are these, hmm?" he murmurs.

"They will likely change color in six months or so."

"Pity. They suit her."

The tiny body feels surprisingly solid against his forearm. All-encompassing affection crashes down on him like a tidal wave, and it is somehow different from what he feels for his wife. It makes him so much more vulnerable, yanking on his heart until he is turned inside-out, his insides raw and exposed. The thought of losing this new presence tears at his ribcage and renders him unable to breathe.

All he has ever wanted is to love and be loved, but the latter seems less important now.

He traces the tiny lips with the pad of his finger. "Erik will take care of you," he whispers.

* * *

 _Summer_.

He glances out the window just in time to see her mount the low stone wall outside the summer cottage. She has a handful of blackberries; the juice runs down her chin and coats her stubby fingers.

"Remove your shoes," he calls out to her. "They are still wet from the stream."

"I don't want to." She finds her balance and starts walking along the narrow stone.

He emits a combination of exhalation and growl. She defies him at practically every turn, and he does not have his wife's patience for it. This pale, golden-haired creature whose head scarcely reaches his abdomen somehow frustrates him more than La Carlotta ever did.

But she is not to be a diva. Certainly, he gives her lessons at the old mahogany piano. Christine sings; he plays violin. Theirs is a house full of music, and the child enjoys it, but she prefers line and form over rhythm and pitch. The cottage is a dizzying rainbow of her rudimentary compositions, plastered to the walls and drying on every surface.

It happens just as he predicted, the slide of wet sole against slippery stone, but still his heart stops as her small body tumbles off of the low wall. He is out of the cottage like a shot. She wails in his arms as he carries her back inside, and he can hardly stand to look at the tears that streak her reddening face.

The commotion somehow does not wake Christine from her nap. He attends to every bump and scrape himself, murmuring words of consolation as he works. The child's crying wanes until only the occasional hiccup punctuates the space between them.

He finishes, and then there is that tiny voice, with its power to both inflate and break his heart: "Thank you, Papa." She lifts his mask and presses a sticky, berry-stained kiss to his lips. "Thank you for taking care of me."

* * *

 _Autumn_.

It is a small, quiet ceremony, first at the town hall and then at the church.

It seems just yesterday that she would scale his rangy frame like a monkey in a tree, slipping her grubby hands under the edge of his mask to pet the weathered skin there. Her wedding gown reminds him of the pale yellow dress she often wore then. Or was it green? Details escape him easily now; the passage of time has begun to erode his memory.

She is as clear-eyed and strong-willed as ever, and she has found a warm companion who suits her temperament. She does not need him anymore. But as they clasp hands and exchange farewells, she murmurs into his ear. "You will visit soon, Papa? I do not think I could last a week without hearing your music."

He holds everything in until he and Christine return to an empty house, where he removes his hat and tailcoat and buckles to the floor, sobbing in his wife's arms.

He can feel her own tears against his near-bare scalp. "We have every reason to be proud," she whispers. "I hope that you are."

* * *

 _Winter_.

He is dozing in a seated position, a red wool blanket over his lap, when a gentle hand on his shoulder wakes him. He is slow to gain his faculties.

He finds himself staring into pair of slate-gray eyes that are framed by flaxen hair. "Good morning," their owner says, and there is something sad about her smile. "How is this cold snap treating you?" He is not certain who she is, but she seems familiar.

Everything aches, but he is not sure the cold snap is accountable for that. He has the sense that he is and always has been cold, yet it does not bother him. "It is nothing of consequence," he says, waving her words away.

She smiles more broadly at that. "As always."

He scans his surroundings; they seem familiar, too. There is a mahogany piano across the room, old and dusty but still beautiful. "Ah, do you play?" he asks, lifting a withered finger to point in its direction.

She does not turn to look at the instrument, but continues to regard him with watery eyes. "A little," she says, "but that is not my piano."

He intends to ask whose it is, but she has already circled behind him to grip the handles of his wheelchair. "Let us go for our morning walk, shall we?" she asks, and the spoked wooden wheels beneath him creak with new movement.

He is not certain who she is, this clear-eyed young woman, but somehow he knows that she will take care of him.


	5. Play

A bit of ridiculousness based on two anonymous Tumblr prompts: "Playing games in the cellars with the Opera Ghost" and "What is Erik's take on puns?"

* * *

Christine loves to dance in the more cavernous cellar spaces.

They are few, and they are cold and dark and damp, and Erik repeatedly reminds her that he can get her access to any practice room in the Opera should she so choose. But she declines, preferring instead the familiar intimacy of his underground palace, its stone arches and cool floors. She takes the battery-powered lantern and her ballet shoes to an empty expanse of stone, and she cues up music on her phone and dances to her heart's content.

He can't hold back a wry smile as he maneuvers the dark passages to fetch her for dinner. It astounds him how quickly she's adjusted to this dank underworld, how far she's come since believing that she could be carried off by a swarm of flesh-eating rats on a moment's notice.

But there is no blonde-haired soprano to greet him at his destination, and no music chirping from tiny phone speakers: only the bright blue-white of the LED lantern, resting alone on the clammy ground. For a brief moment, his heartbeat takes an erratic turn.

"Christine?" He keeps his voice low, but it echoes. There is no response—nothing human, at least.

The sound that follows is soft but metallic, like the rattling of coins in a purse, except it's constant, rhythmic, punctuated by a steady clank as though keeping time. It's nothing he's ever heard in his cellars before, and it's coming from the stone stairs nearby.

Thin fingers close around the catgut lasso in his jacket as he creeps nearer to the wall of the staircase. The soft clanging descends the steps, edging closer and closer until it nears the bottom, just around the edge of the wall from where he stands. There is a small clatter, and then silence.

Every muscle in Erik's body is tensed and ready as he slowly, quietly peers around the wall's edge.

There, at the base of the steps, with a silver surface to reflect the lantern-light, is a Slinky.

He bends over to retrieve it, releasing an audible sigh that is met with a malicious giggle from the top of the stairs. Her voice floats down from the next story up, faux-ominous and singsongy: "Beware the Slinky of the Opera!"

"You had best come down here, Miss Daaé, or I will feed your dessert to the cat."

She gasps, clearly intending to be dramatic, but her shadow darkens the stairwell and she pads down the stairs. "You wouldn't!"

He towers over her even as she stands on the bottom step, and he uses that advantage to glower down at her. "Then you'd best not toy with me, my dear." His voice is husky as he snakes an arm around her waist.

His intended, however, bites at her bottom lip as though holding back laughter. "No pun intended?" she asks sweetly.

He blinks at her and, for a moment, does not respond. "Right then," he finally says, and he scoops her off the stairs to hoist her over his shoulder. She shrieks in protest, but he shakes his head. "Puns are an infraction of the highest degree, Miss Daaé. Back to the dungeon you go."

He grabs the lantern with his free hand, and the sound of her squealing laughter echoes throughout the damp stone corridors as he carries her home.


	6. City of love

A very fluffy response to an anonymous Tumblr prompt: "Modern E/C, having fun with vine."

* * *

When the pair spilled out of the Palais Garnier, it was with Christine laughing and clutching Erik's elbow for dear life, imbalanced as she was by the champagne and a set of strappy, too-high heels.

"Careful, my dear." Despite the crowd, his baritone was low and dulcet in her ear. "I would hate for our travels to end with a concussion."

"Even that couldn't spoil this trip," she replied dreamily. "Every moment has been amazing. But the Paris Opera! In a private box! How can anything ever top that? I'll spend the rest of my life pining for it." She looked over to him, and something in the rigid set of his jaw made her grin falter. "Erik?"

Amber irises caught the light of a streetlamp and glimmered deep within the eye-sockets of his black mask. "And I will spend the rest of my life picturing you, here, on this night, and in that dress." He gestured to the navy silk faille, cut to a deep V in front, that spilled over her figure. She smiled, and he pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth. "Happy belated birthday, Miss Daaé."

"Best gift ever." She clutched the lapels of his dark suit jacket and kissed him back. Then she held out her purse in order to extract her phone. "And now, we selfie."

He exhaled through the nose-holes of the mask. "Must we?"

"This way, you will always have that image of me, here and in this dress." She pulled him onto the pale steps of the opera house, overlooking the avenue, as she readied the camera.

"Yes, but the image in my head is sweet and timeless. No ducklips." He was rewarded with an elbow to the ribs.

"I don't do ducklips, and you know it," she said. "Now, please at least attempt a smile."

He did not, but neither did he appear aggravated, and so it would suffice. In fact, she was willing to push her luck, just this once, in order to memorialize what was possibly the best night of her life thus far. "And now a video," she added.

"No! No video."

"Just a Vine, then? It would only be six seconds!"

"I can only presume that a 'Vine' is some form of content-sharing social media, in which case I offer an even more emphatic 'no.'"

"My account is private. It's just our friends who will see it."

"Your friends. Mine only by proxy."

"Nadir is your friend."

"Mm. Is he?"

" _Erik_."

He let out a long, slow exhale. "Fine. If it means that much to you."

"It does." She slipped an arm around his waist and lay her cheek against his shoulder. "I couldn't possibly be any happier than I am tonight. You make me happy." She positioned the camera out in front of their faces, and her smile grew as he curled a lanky arm around her shoulders. When she hit the button to record, he surprised her by pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"At least look it over before you broadcast it to the world," he said as he pulled away.

"Fine, you old grouch," she replied, but she was still beaming. She wasn't sure that she would ever stop. She bent over the little screen and replayed the clip, reveling in the sight of his lips on her skin. The arm wrapped around her shoulders moved, too, with hand and wrist snapping in a flash of movement. She played it again.

The hand held a small box. And the box was flicked open.

When she spun to confront him, he was already down on one knee.


	7. Halloween

More modern fluff. I guess I'm on a kick. Happy Halloween, all!

* * *

"The Swansons have an inflatable spider in their yard," Christine reported as she peered through a small gap in the living-room curtains. "It's almost the size of their sedan."

Erik, sitting with legs crossed in his armchair, did not look up from his book. "How gauche," he replied. He thumbed the corner of a page and turned it.

"I certainly don't think it's scary. It's so obviously fake. What kid is going to find that scary?"

He said nothing. She was obviously still hung up on last year, when Mr. Swanson had posed as a lifeless scarecrow on the porch to terrify innocent trick-or-treaters. "But _I_ wanted to be the scary house," she had protested, gesturing to the sea of styrofoam tombstones and tangled cobwebs that graced their own lawn. He'd only nodded and rubbed her shoulder in response, for the towering bride-of-Frankenstein wig and black lipstick had made it difficult to take her seriously.

The cobwebs and tombstones returned this Halloween, joined now by glowing-eyed spiders and disembodied limbs breaking through sod, respectively. A shrouded skeleton hung from a high branch of their saucer magnolia tree. When someone set off the motion sensor, Christine had informed him, the skeleton's LED eyes would flicker red and it would emit a sinister cackle.

"Maybe we should get a fog machine," she said.

At that, he did look up. "Surely I do not need to tell you how ridiculous that sounds."

"I honestly don't understand your indifference," she said, crossing her arms. "Halloween is totally your aesthetic."

"No, it is a cheap mockery of my aesthetic."

She glared. "Fine. No fog machine, but I'm doing the spooky projector light."

One week later, on Halloween night, the tiny light hidden among their shrubbery cast an eerie purple glow on the front of the house. The jack-o'-lanterns were meticulously carved, the walkway lined with glowing luminaries, the windows strung with spider lights. Christine had hidden a fist-sized bluetooth speaker among the cobwebs and pumpkins on the porch, and she began streaming a haunted house soundtrack from her phone at promptly six o'clock for the start of trick-or-treating.

And she, his doe-eyed bride, she was decked in thrift-store clothes that she had shredded and marred with dirt and fake blood. Her hair was tousled, her face ashen with black-rimmed eyes, blood smeared across her mouth and chin. When she descended the staircase from the second floor to model her costume, he could not stop his mouth from quirking back.

He rose from his chair as she sidled up to him. "You are the most grotesquely beautiful creature of the undead that I have ever beheld," he murmured, threading long fingers through the hair on either side of her head. "And though I have never been one for celebration, as you well know, I do adore your enthusiasm." He gently brought his mouth down to hers. Her lips were soft and yielding beneath the stickiness and the cloying mint flavor of the stage blood.

She palmed one side of his black mask as they shared a languid kiss. When she pulled away, it was with half-lidded eyes and a mischievous smile. "Don't tempt the creature that feeds on flesh," she said wryly.

The doorbell rang, preceding a muffled "Trick or treat!" from a pair of tiny voices. Christine's eyes lit up, and she moved to grab the candy bowl.

"Your time to shine, my dear," Erik said. "Terrify those small children and make me proud."

He retreated to his armchair, where he spent the rest of the evening reading and sipping at scotch, occasionally pausing to watch the most charming and nonthreatening zombie he had ever seen as she distributed treats. Somehow, even through the white makeup, she glowed.

Two hours later, the visitors had thinned to a slow trickle. She peered through the blinds again, watching expectantly for the next group. He had just stood to refill his glass when she gasped and jumped back from the window.

"The Swansons are coming," she said, "and they're going to be all snide like they were last year. As though Halloween spirit is a competition! Ugh, I wish I could scare them so badly that they'd lay off forever."

The doorbell rang. Erik stopped his wife with a raised hand and set his glass on the end table. "Allow me."

He removed his mask, opened the front door, and reveled in satisfaction as he was met with a chorus of screams.


	8. Family

Written for Tumblr at the request of phantom-of-the-keurig, who asked for E/C with baby. Major fluff for the holidays.

* * *

Never had she looked so much like an angel as when he first saw them together. They were a pair of angels, really: a Renaissance painting, stripped of its saturated color but retaining all of the same softness and story.

Christine was propped up in a nest of freshly changed bedding, her dark hair fanning out across the pillows. Her lips were pale—too pale—but her face was softly radiant, her eyes alight. A clean white nightdress was unbuttoned to her breastbone, revealing a narrow V of tender skin. And folded asleep against her chest, over her beating heart, was a small creature of puckered flesh.

She smiled up at him. "Leave your mask," she said, "and come meet your son."

A son. A _boy_. His chest constricted.

It was not that he had hoped for a boy—no, only a healthy infant and a safe delivery—but with that bit of information, he knew infinitely more about his child than he had a moment before, when the babe had been only a rounded swell in Christine's belly, a thump of a foot against his splayed hand. Otherwise, it had been a near-intangible thing, an almost abstract concept, and he'd had to content himself with the scraps of information that his wife had fed him over the course of nine months.

"I think the little darling is performing flips in there," she had noted once. "It feels almost as though it's swimming!" She had joked that perhaps she was actually gestating a fish, at which point his face had paled, because who knew what physical atrocities the child might inherit from him? Perhaps a tail was not altogether out of the question.

But she had read his thoughts and replied, cheekily, that "a fish-baby would not be the worst thing, Erik. There is a lake just outside."

He had not found this at all humorous.

In fact, the very next day, he had sought the daroga's assistance in finding a new residence, propelled as he was by a newfound fear of infant drowning.

But this tiny body appeared not to have a tail. It had all the requisite limbs and digits, with a perfect button nose and plump, puckered lips. He drew closer to the side of the bed.

"Your mask," Christine repeated softly.

He frowned. "My dear, I do not think—"

"His first glimpse of his papa's face should consist of said face. I will not have it otherwise."

Hesitantly, he nodded and palmed the white porcelain, setting it on the bedside table as he slid off his shoes. He had already shed his white cravat and black tailcoat during the long and unbearable wait for news from the midwife, leaving him in only trousers, vest, and shirtsleeves, the latter rolled up to the elbows. His wig was mussed, and he removed that, too. Then he eased himself onto the bed beside her.

She passed the infant into his near-trembling hands, showing him how to cradle the soft and vulnerable head. His broad hand looked massive beneath it.

The babe was light in his arms, and yet it grounded him; it laid anchor with all the gravity of the world, so that he would forever be tethered to this tiny thing. No matter what he did or where he went, he would feel the tug of the moorings on his heart.

And Christine: she had harbored this perfect, miniature person for the better part of a year, had kept it safe and healthy and then labored to bring it into his world—a world that, until now, had consisted of only her and music. Now, with the boy, his world was expanded. Redefined.

She watched him with their son, her eyes glistening, and he leaned in to press his half-bloated lips to her lovelier ones. "You are a marvel, my dear," he murmured.

She smiled and nestled in against him, running a hand over the fine whorl of dark hair on the baby's head. "I know we have not yet settled on a name," she said, "but I thought that we might consider—"

"No."

She stopped, tilted her head. "Is something wrong?"

He shook his head. "Only it occurs to me that once we give the little one a name, he becomes a part of the record books. He must be…shared. With the world, beyond our doors." He inhaled the scent of the boy's skin, something breathtakingly wonderful: milky and soft and sweet.

"And you have never been predisposed to share," said Christine, smiling wryly.

"Mmm. Alas." In this moment, with his family— _family!_ —all to himself, he could not quite summon the guilt for his shortcomings. He brushed a thumb over the infant's puckered lips.

She settled in even closer; he felt her muscles relax against him. "Then no name," she said, "for now."

And in the hours that followed, his entire world, his every reason for being, was contained in one single four-poster bed.


	9. Love's Sacrifice

Response to an anonymous tumblr prompt: "What do you think Erik would get Christine for Valentine's Day and vice versa?" I've held off on posting here because FFN was glitching, so uhh...happy belated Valentine's Day?

* * *

It was the first time in his life that he had cause to celebrate Valentine's Day, and he wanted it to be everything for her.

He thought about it for weeks.

He first considered the traditional offerings: flowers to echo her beauty, confections to soothe her cravings for sweets. She would be content with the smallest token of affection, his Christine. But he could not stop at contentment; no, he wanted her to know the ardor that burned in his heart, pumped fire into his veins and breath into his lungs, with more intensity than even music could manage.

Ah, but music! He would compose her a song: a violin concerto, perhaps, or a nocturne on the pianoforte, or even an aria for her to sing. He had always had such hopes for his new wife, after all: for her to serve as not only his companion, but also as his muse. Christine was a tangle of exquisite melodies that fluttered about him on tiny gossamer wings; he needed only to pluck one from the air and pin it with ink and paper.

But it still felt wrong—even superficial, somehow. It felt wrong for days and days and he could not have said why, until at last, the night before that suddenly wretched holiday, he knew what he must give her.

He scarcely slept that night.

She gave him his gift after breakfast. First was a card, made with scraps of pretty paper and lace, in which she'd penned the lyrics to a romantic aria: one of his favorites, in fact, though he was certain he'd never told her as much. Next was a small, paper-wrapped parcel containing several handkerchiefs. They were edged with delicate lacework—a skill she'd been working at for months—and she had managed to incorporate Apollo's lyre into the pattern.

It still caught him off guard, that he should occupy her thoughts enough to inspire such wondrous things.

He thanked her and kissed her softly on the cheek. "I'm afraid you must wait until tonight for your gift," he said.

As expected, she expressed her wishes for nothing but his company, and he kissed her again to silence her sweet ridiculousness and ushered her off to rehearsal.

When she returned that night, he had plunged their home into romantic candlelight. At his request, the daroga had furnished bundles of hothouse flowers in reds and roses and pale-pinks, and they sat now in vases on every surface: for dinner, for decoration, for her boudoir. She gushed over them, inhaling their fragrances, cradling their soft blooms with gentle hands.

He served her favorite foods for supper, and her favorite spirits after. Then, at last, he placed in her lap a small hatbox tied with a red satin ribbon.

His heart hammered as her slender fingers untied the bow and lifted the lid. The box was lined with thin paper, and she parted that, too. Her eyes grew wide at the sight. "Why, it's empty!" she cried. She looked up at him, questioning.

With trembling fingers, he reached back to remove his mask, and he set it inside the hatbox.

Christine looked from his bare face, to the mask, to his face again. The flickering glow of the candelabras illuminated his death's-head quite well, he imagined.

"I still cannot fathom why you should ever desire to look upon this face," he said quietly, "but your wishes have not gone unheeded. The mask—" He swallowed the biting sickness that bubbled up in his chest. "The mask will remain in the box so long as we are here, alone."

Her mouth was drawn. He could only wait, breath hitched, as the cool air licked at his newly exposed skin.

Her lips slowly parted in a smile, and it was as though the sun's rays had seared right through his heart, and he could scarcely believe it when she stood to take his ravaged face into her hands.

"Thank you," she whispered, and then her soft mouth was on that twisted flesh, and he let himself drown in her touch.


	10. Secrets

Written for an anonymous dialogue prompt on Tumblr: "I've been praying for you." Major angst warning!

* * *

He did not want to think her unfaithful—would never have thought such a disparaging thing of her, even if he was perhaps the world's ugliest husband and could therefore forgive her that particular transgression—but the fact remained that she had lied to him.

She had lied regarding her whereabouts for the past three days, at least. How long she had done so before his initial discovery, he could not say.

He had found out that first day when she had gone to take tea with the Girys, and he had dared to leave the relative comfort of his home for the first time in ages. He had spied Madame Giry and her daughter in the opera house then, rather than at home, with no indication of his wife accompanying them.

The next day there had been a costume fitting, or so she had reported as she'd handed him his afternoon tea and kissed him on the cheek. He had trailed her long enough to know that she had gone not up into the opera house, but rather out the Rue Scribe side, and he had returned home to cold tea and a newfound hollowness in his chest.

Today, she had cited a longer rehearsal time than usual: she would need to stay late, she'd told him, to work on her aria alone with the accompanist. Again he had wandered upstairs to find her gone.

She returned at dinnertime, greeting him in the sitting-room with a soft smile as she untied her bonnet. Her hair was down today, spilling over her shoulders in waves the color of new wheat. The contrast between it and her dark-blue gown was stunning, dizzying, so perfect and otherworldly that he grew sick at the realization of what he was about to do.

He rose from his chair. "My dearest," he said, clearing his throat. "I do not wish to impose on your personal affairs, but I would perhaps worry less for your safety if I knew where you disappeared to each day."

She had just removed her cloak, and now she froze with the dark wool clenched in her fingers, regarding him with startled blue eyes. "Whatever do you mean?"

He crossed to take the cloak from her and hang it. "I have ventured out of the house of late, and it seems that you are never quite where I expect you to be."

She wrung her hands, her pale-pink lips downturned as she searched his face. "It is not what you think," she said, "or, at least, nothing so awful. It is only the church I've disappeared to; I swear it!"

"Church," he repeated. He reached for her hand, running a wiry thumb over her delicate knuckles. "I have never disparaged your piety, my dear; why should you hide it from me?"

"Because…" Her lower lip quivered. "Because I've been praying for you."

Unease punched him hard in the gut and coursed icily through his veins. "Well, that is hardly necessary," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand.

She shook her head. "I can hear you at night," she said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. "I know that you wait to fall asleep until you are certain I have first, but I have woken to your gasps for breath." She cried freely now, holding fast to his hand. "Your lungs—they sound so papery and frail."

He gritted his teeth. _Not yet._ She was not supposed to know yet.

He offered a weak smile for her benefit. "I am afraid this body has gone brittle with age, my dear. But it is to be expected: nothing of significant concern."

But she pressed on, more throatily now. "You no longer leave the house, and not for one second have I believed that you've lost interest in the affairs of the Opera, as you say. And your occasional cough—that has never truly gone, has it?"

He swallowed and peered down at where their hands were joined: one soft and willowy, the other a rangy mass of bone and sinew, marred by age spots. "What would you have me say?"

She squeezed his hand until he raised his head to meet her gaze. Her cheeks were already tear-stained; her chin trembled. "Tell me how much time we have."

His mouth went dry. "I do not know," he said earnestly. "Months, perhaps. A year."

The tears fell harder, but soundlessly. She slid her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. "I love you," she whispered, the words muffled by his tailcoat. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

All he could do was hold her and quietly weep himself, for the walking corpse was not meant to have a living bride. He had defied the natural order of things, the balance of life and death, and damned them both. He could only cling to the hope that things would be righted in his wake.


	11. Scars

Written for an anonymous dialogue prompt on Tumblr: "Take off your shirt." Hope it makes up for the angst in the last one. ;)

* * *

She squinted through one eye to watch him through her near-empty goblet. He was squatting in front of the hearth, bony knees akimbo as he stoked the evening fire. Through the crystal it was difficult to discern where his shirtsleeves ended and his sallow forearms began, even with the cuffs rolled to the elbows.

She set the glass down on the little table beside her chair. The shirt was an impeccable white, whereas the skin was a yellow-gray: "death warmed over," as he liked to say, but it seemed to her that the network of veins and wiry muscle surging beneath was the very picture of life.

The pair had become more comfortable with each other of late, enough that he had shucked his jacket to tend to the fire: he disliked cleaning soot out of the wool. Hunched as he was, his shoulder blades jutted out noticeably from beneath his garnet waistcoat.

She tracked a silvery scar that emerged from his hairline to streak down the nape of his neck and disappear into his collar. Her mind was suddenly consumed by thoughts of the man in front of her: not her normal thoughts, the ones about his genius and his music and the dry softness that lurked beneath his sharp edges, but thoughts of him as a physical specimen. A man. What other peculiarities did that wiry frame hold? What had it endured, over time?

"Take off your shirt."

The words spilled from her wine-slackened tongue the moment she thought them. She clapped a hand over her mouth, heat rising in her cheeks, but it was too late: he had cocked his head with delicate caution, and his gaze seared through her. "I beg your pardon?"

"I—you—you have a scar. On the back of your neck."

His head tilted even more. "I do."

"I just…" She could not stop stammering, but now it was her own nerves, and not the wine, that were to blame. "I only wondered how far down it goes, and…what it's from?" The breath began to drain from her lungs at the intensity of his stare. "Forgive me. I—I don't—"

She cut herself off as he stood, his spindly fingers already working at the waistcoat buttons. She knew she should protest, but she did not, entranced as she was by his quiet precision, his amber eyes that never left her face. The firm line of his mouth suggested that he had resigned himself to this task.

She could not help but wonder why.

The waistcoat landed on a chair back. Rangy fingers parted his shirt at the center, revealing a flash of a sunken chest before he turned and lowered the garment to expose his back.

The scar at his neck was one of many scored into his skin at perpendicular angles, distributed unevenly down the length of his spine. She shuddered to consider what unspeakable circumstances might have given way to such severe lashings—and she hoped, fervently, that he did not earn all of those marks in a single sitting.

She was not cognizant of having left her chair to stand behind him, but now her hand hovered at his back. He tensed as though he could already feel the heat of her palm.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, but he shook his head. And so, delicately, she traced the silvery latticework with the pads of her fingers. She did not miss how his breath stopped on an inhale, or how his fingers curled and released at his sides.

It was then—and only then—that she realized just how affected he was by her.

He pulled up his shirt the moment she lifted her fingertips, and it was some strange combination of guilt and mild inebriation and a sudden, fluttering thrill that informed what happened next.

"I have a scar here," she said, trailing a finger along the juncture of right thigh and hip. "My skirt caught on a loose nail." There was only a beat of silence before she added, more quietly, "Would you like to see it?"

His fingers froze where they had been refastening the buttons at his sternum, and his jaw went slack. He did not—could not?—respond, and she chose to believe it was a product of nervousness, not unwillingness.

She smiled shyly. "Help me with these skirts," she whispered, wanting very much to feel those broad hands on her.

His jaw snapped shut, and it was with a newfound fire in his eyes that he reached for her waistband.


	12. Face of beast

Written for an anonymous dialogue prompt on Tumblr: "I'm scared."

* * *

He is toiling away at his score when he hears it: the brassy _ting_ of the alarm bell. An intruder.

He stills, waits. Sometimes a rat will set off a trap in passing—they can grow monstrously large down here, feeding off the sewer waste—but they are not so large as to set off the alarm a second time with their escape attempts.

Another jingle of the bell, and he is on his feet, snatching up a lantern, punjab lasso at the ready.

A growl rumbles low in this throat as he weaves through the darkened cellars. The daroga ought to know better by now—unless it is not the daroga for once, but rather an unlucky stagehand. That man Buquet has been poking around far too much of late. Regardless, he hopes the fall through the trapdoor was an unpleasant one. He has not the time nor the patience for such interruptions.

The trapdoor in question has been opened, and there is a scrabbling sound from deep within the pit that lies beneath. He holds the lantern over the opening and searches for the Persian's telltale astrakhan cap, his flinty but tired green eyes.

What he finds instead is a jolt to his system: a young woman, with a tangle of fair hair spilling onto a frock of faded blue. Her face is streaked with dust and tears, her eyes bright and wide with fear. She is ringed by shards of glass that catch the light: her own lantern, dashed to pieces in the fall.

She gasps at his sudden appearance. He is well aware of how his golden irises reflect the lamplight, how the black mask on his face makes them hover like bodiless cat eyes in the dark. He relies on it.

"Ah," he says coolly. "It seems a little mouse has burrowed too far into the cellars."

"Please help me," she whispers. "I'm scared."

"As you ought to be. This is the underworld, mademoiselle, and the living are most unwelcome here." Still, he unfurls the rope ladder he installed for such occasions, and he motions for her to climb.

She protests. She has injured her ankle in the fall, she tells him, and cut her hand on the glass. It is only then that he notices the blood caking her palm, and there is an unpleasant churning in his stomach. It is not sickness; blood does not unnerve him in the slightest. What is it, then? It is irksome, whatever it is, and he wishes it gone.

Somehow he manages to help her out of the pit. The cloth of her dress feels foreign to his fingers. When he wraps her palm in his handkerchief, the contrast between their respective hands is stark. She is perhaps pale by French standards, yes, but still soft and dewy. He is gaunt and sallow, truly an otherworldly thing, a cave-dweller, a lurker of shadow.

He cannot say why he carries her back to his house, nor why she seems to trust him implicitly, her arms loose around his neck as she peers up at his mask. He has never held a woman before. She is so warm in his arms that they tremble, that he must will himself not to drop her.

She does not remark on the existence of a house in the Opera's underbelly, but her eyes are alert, absorbing everything. He deposits her on a sofa in the sitting room, doses her with a bit of laudanum for her pain, cleans and bandages her bloodied hand.

He examines her ankle, too: only a strain, he assures her. The sight and feel of that delicate ankle, sheathed in a too-thin cream stocking, makes him dizzy, until he must close his eyes against a building nausea. He quickly extracts himself to make tea.

But this feeling, this wretched ache in the pit of his stomach, only worsens upon his return. Even before he enters the room, he can hear her humming. Humming _his music_. Her tone is round and clear, her pitch near-perfect, and there is something seraphic in the way it cuts through the room, chasing away the shadows.

She has found the sheet music he left on the end table, and she is sight-reading from where she lies on the sofa, her ankle elevated. He thanks God that his score in progress is safely tucked away in his quarters. It would sear right through her skin with its vulgar cadence, its fiery dissonance.

He stays rooted to the doorway, watching her.

He knows very little of women, but this one seems to have stepped right out of a fairytale: a princess, perhaps, but as yet the simple pauperess unaware of her royalty, not yet attuned to her innate grace and charm. She has lost her way, tumbled through a rabbit-hole only to fall into his clutches. Even without meaning to, he has become the monster who ensnared her. He could never be anything else.

There is a lancing pain in his chest as he considers the possibility of a handsome prince in her future, or even her present. He must return her to her kingdom, to her happily ever after, before the beast within him is loosed.

She sets the music aside as he approaches with the tea tray. Her movements are sluggish, her eyelids heavy: effects of the laudanum. He must waste no time.

He sets down the tray. "Come, mademoiselle. It is time we restored you to the land of the living."

"So soon?" she asks, faintly. "But I am so very tired, and I have yet to learn your name."

He blinks, his response a mere whisper. "Erik."

"Erik." She smiles even as her eyelids flutter shut. She is asleep before he can learn her name in return.

Eventually, he has the presence of mind to cover her with a blanket, stoke the fire. Then he sits and, against his better judgment, watches her sleep.

She smiled at him. No one has ever smiled at him before.

The princess does not choose the ogre, in the end. He knows that. But he will cling to the tiniest scrap of hope, if it means he might see that smile again: that smile meant only for the monster.


	13. Burn

Written for an anonymous Tumblr prompt: "a kiss out of envy or jealousy." This is particularly dark and angsty, so do feel free to skip.

* * *

As had become custom, she was dressed for bed when he knocked at her boudoir. She padded to the door in silk slippers and nightdress, both furnished by him. She had tied back her hair with an ivory ribbon to match.

He entered on a prowl, slick and sharp. His eyes burned as they raked over her figure. "I did not purchase that hair ribbon."

"No, you did not." Each word was icy, deliberate. "Raoul gave it to me."

A fist clenched at his side, but it was the slight cock of his head that sent chills up her spine. "You dare speak his name." His voice was a molten hiss. When she did not reply, he moved in closer, bearing down on her. "It was _me_ you chose, lest you forget."

"How could I?" she bit out.

His gaze cooled even as his jaw tightened. He touched two fingertips to his forehead in mock salute. "Touché."

Broad hands cupped either side of her face with a stunning tenderness—and then they traveled around to the base of her head, to untie the ribbon. Even her coldest stare left him unfazed as his fingers worked at the knot. Once the ribbon was free, he tucked it into his breast pocket.

"Now," he said, "I have come to bid you goodnight." He leaned in, cupping the back of her head, and she braced herself for the chaste kiss to come: the one form of physical affection that she had, in a moment of weakness, permitted him. A single goodnight kiss, close-lipped and quick, to be administered each night before bed.

A hair's width from her face, he halted.

His breath fell warm and heavy on her cheeks, laced with the sharply sweet scent of cognac. "He has already kissed you here," he said quietly. He dragged the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, as if to wipe away the evidence.

She kept quiet; neither affirmation nor contradiction would please him. Her legs quivered.

"Tell me, Christine"—roaming fingertips settled on her forehead—"has he kissed you here?"

Hesitantly, she nodded.

The same fingers skimmed down the side of her face to her neck, where they hovered at the pulse point beneath her jaw. "Here?"

She shook her head, whispering, "No."

Lips, warm and dry, settled at her throat. She stiffened, and he pulled back quickly. His eyes were narrow and cloudy now, and there was something wild in them, something desperate that frightened her. " _Christine_ ," he growled: half threat, half plea. "What will it take for you to accept me as your husband?" Without awaiting an answer, he hooked an arm around her and crushed his mouth to hers.

She closed her eyes without meaning to. His lips tore into her, tore into the very fabric of her existence, until she was certain she would be rent to shreds. She clutched at the lapels of his jacket as though they were all that moored her to the earth in this maelstrom of his own making.

She found herself inching backward. Soon there was a wall at her back, and a knee slid firmly between her thighs to pin her there. She gasped into his mouth.

He took advantage of her parted lips and she let him, let in the hot lash of tongue against her own. Here was the only source of warmth in this wretched place. The only source of touch she would ever have.

Her jaw went rigid. She kissed him back, hard and harder still, until she could feel the solid outline of teeth through lip. Her nails sank into the wool of his coat, and for one guilty, fleeting second, she wished it had been his skin instead.

There was a rumble low in his throat, and he released her to skate his hands down her arms, down her ribs, to twist at deep handfuls of the nightgown until it pulled taut against her. His mouth stayed on hers, plying with desperate pressure until she could scarcely breathe.

She could let him have this. Have her. It was bound to happen eventually: boredom or loneliness or guilt would break her, and she would submit. If they were destined for mutual destruction—which they most assuredly were—then they might as well take some pleasure from it.

But no. Let the guilt eat away at him for a while yet.

She did not so much as look over her shoulder once she broke free of his embrace. "Goodnight, Erik," she called flatly. She crossed the room through an enduring silence until, finally, the door slammed shut, and she let herself crumple to the floor.


	14. Resurrection

Written for a Tumblr kissing prompt: "a kiss to wake up"

* * *

It was all the daroga's fault, really.

He had furnished the bottle now in Erik's possession, the bottle meant to contain apple brandy. And Erik was meant to share a thimbleful with Mlle. Daaé, to celebrate her triumphant audition the day before. She was radiant in her frock of lilac and lace, her face open and eager as she watched him uncork the bottle in her dressing-room.

One whiff of the liquor, however, and his legs gave out beneath him.

It was clearly an error: not apple brandy, but Armagnac. Sharp and oaky at the outset, then earthy and sweet, like leather. The dressing-room blurred and spun in his periphery. He could not quite catch his breath.

Armagnac: his father's preferred intoxicant. He gasped for air as his lungs continued to shrivel and burn. He was now horizontal, somehow. Above him, the ceiling pulsed in time to his painful, frenetic heartbeat.

Armagnac, on his father's breath as callused hands seized him by the shirt collar to toss his scrawny juvenile frame into the hen-house, because to sleep on the dirt with the chickens was to give Father and Mother a reprieve from his abhorrent face, his gawkish mannerisms and unsettling voice.

The room went black. He was distantly aware of Christine's cries, urgent but muffled, as though his ears had been plugged with wax. His lungs still burned and his ribs ached, right where Father's heel had struck them the night he'd refused to wear the mask, the night the sickly odor of the liquor had seemed to seep from every corner of the small and forsaken country house.

Hands fluttered at his chest, fingering his pulse, loosening his tie. More muffled cries—had he not just lectured her on her diction, that careless girl? He must reprove her again, must make sure she did not jeopardize her new role, and now there was only a pleasant buzz around him and he was fading, fading…

Out of the nothingness came a strange pressure on his lips, a dewy softness he did not know or understand. It sent every nerve tingling.

He forced his eyes open.

A haze in his vision blurred her features to little more than rounded face and flaxen hair, but he would have recognized that cherubic setting anywhere. For a moment there were two of her—a wondrous thing!—but they soon melded into a single form that solidified above him.

"Maestro?" Her voice was small and quivering. "Are you all right? Can you speak?" She hovered over him, long hair sheeting down so it almost touched his mask. Oh, what must it be like, to feel that hair on one's skin?

He recalled what had roused him, and his lips tingled anew. "Did—did you—?" He touched two fingers to his mouth.

Blue eyes widened. "Yes," she whispered. "I kissed you."

"Why?" His voice was hoarse; the word stuck in his throat.

She was crying now. His chest tightened all over again; he could not bear to witness her grief. He lifted an unsteady hand to banish the tears from her face, but she caught it midway, clasped it between her own, pressed his knuckles to her cheek. "I was so frightened," she said. "I truly feared the worst, and I could not let you go without—without you knowing—" She sucked in a shaky breath.

"Christine," he rasped. He must sit up, must move nearer, but his muscles would not yet allow it. Confound this wretched body of his!

"Yes, Maestro?" She leaned forward, her face in line with his, and that was all he needed. He palmed the back of her head and pulled her down to him.

The taste of her on his lips, on his tongue: he could have burst with joy, right then and there. Instead he let his mouth take what it wanted: her, and only her, breathing life back into his lungs with every gentle glide of lip. He wound his fingers into her hair and was resurrected.

Perhaps he owed the good daroga a favor after all.


	15. Away from Me

A/N: I debated for a long time whether to post this here, because it's VERY angsty and not exactly E/C, but it features both of them and I thought it'd be nice to publish something amid such a dry spell. Please feel free to skip if it's not your thing.

Based on a Tumblr prompt: "a kiss because time's run out"

* * *

She did not intend to return to him—not after all that happened. But when the Persian tells her that Erik is on death's door, she knows what she must do.

She trembles as the kind daroga rows her across the underground lake, and by the time they reach the entrance to the little house, she must clutch the door frame to steady her whirling vision, her thudding heart.

"I can take you back," comes a voice at her side, quiet and deep, and she looks up into jade eyes rife with emotion. "He would never know you were here."

For a fleeting second she considers it, but she shakes her head. "I must."

At the Persian's doing, Erik lies not in his coffin but in a bed. Her bed, in the Louis-Philippe room. Memory threatens to overwhelm her until she sees just how withered and sallow he has become, how his formerly agile limbs have sunken so lifelessly into the mattress. Every breath rattles in his lungs, and the air is thick and foul. She has tucked a small white rose into her hair, recalling the sour stench that preceded her father's passing, but its sweet smell cannot eclipse that pervasive sickness.

He wears no mask, and his eyes seem to have sunken even farther into their sockets as they flick over to her figure in the doorway.

"Chris…tine?"

She slowly crosses to the bedside and kneels. "Yes, Erik."

He wets parched lips with his tongue. "Why…are you…here?" Each syllable is labored and hoarse.

"Because…" She inhales deeply. "Because I love you."

Watery yellow eyes search hers. "Not as—" His voice gives out, and he moistens his lips again. "Not as I would have you love me." There is no bitterness to that once-golden voice: only grim acceptance.

She does not contradict him. She will not lie to him, even now.

A small, wheezing sigh crackles in his chest. "It is…just as well…is it not?" He gestures weakly to his person: a feeble attempt at humor, enough to ease the tightness in her jaw.

But then something shifts in his gaze. His fingers, skeletal and shaking, rise with an arthritic curl. They scarcely touch the pale hair at her temple before he lowers his hand. "Oh, my sweet Christine."

The words are little more than a fluttering breath, her name catching in his throat, and at the sight of the tears spilling from his eyes, her own vision is blurred. She clutches his hand and they grieve together.

The night moves at painful crawl. Erik's breaths become shallower, his eyelids heavier. His words to her—murmurs of regret, and confusion, but mostly of adoration—grow more sparse and infrequent, until he can no longer twist thin lips into their respective shapes.

He and Christine simply stare at each other then, and she knows he is telling her he loves her, because his eyes look the same as they did the night she kissed him and wept with him in the wake of the scorpion's turn.

She kissed him on the forehead that night. This night, as she smooths back the wisps of hair from his damp brow to press another kiss there, she falters.

Her lips descend on his lips instead.

She kisses him softly, and he sighs into her mouth, and his hand seems to go boneless in her grasp. He watches her through hazy, half-lidded eyes when she pulls away, and he is still watching her, devoutly, when later a final sleep sets in and shutters those golden irises.

With a shuddering breath, Christine rests her cheek against Erik's chest and mourns a fallen angel.

* * *

 _Loosely inspired by a line from the song "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie: "Love is watching someone die." Chapter title is from the same song._


	16. Family, Part Two

From a tumblr prompt: a kiss, lazily

As the chapter title suggests, I wrote this as a companion piece to chapter 8 ("Family").

* * *

For much of Erik's life, the same sounds had marked the early morning hours: the frantic scratching of pen nib on paper. His own anger and frustration, funneled through dissonant chords on the organ. The echo of his huffs and growls against stone. The steady _plink_ of leaking sewer water in the background.

These days, there was only quiet. Or at least, there had been, until the arrival of his son five days prior.

When he woke now, at that time when shadows softened and stars began to fade, it was to a tiny, fussing cry. The rustle of sheets behind him. The squeak of the gas valve that needed oiling. The murmured cadence of his wife's voice, smoothing over the lusty cries like a balm. (There was a melodic certainty to that voice—like a siren, luring victims into quiet complacency—and he wondered how she could be so sure, so adept, when he himself was still scrabbling for any sense of how to be a father.)

Finally, there came the suckling of tiny lips against flesh, and the small gasps of a throat sated by swallows of milk. _K-ah_. _K-ah_.

Erik allowed his eyes to adjust to the flickering gaslight.

He stared at the mask on his nightstand. His ravaged face seemed to burn and pulsate in its nakedness, and he fought against every instinct to palm the cool porcelain at his bedside. She did not want him to hide his face—not from them. His family.

He rolled over in bed. Christine sat with pillows propped up against the headboard, a downy-haired head at her breast. Her hair was mussed, her eyes underscored by dark hollows, but her body was relaxed. She smiled at him. "Good morning."

Erik squinted, brows furrowed, voice thick with sleep. "What time is it?"

"Half past four."

He groaned. "Hardly morning. Unconscionable, if you ask me."

"Your son seems to think otherwise."

He pushed himself to a sitting position, rearranging the bedding as he inched closer. "Ridiculous, that we should defer to a creature with scarcely a week to his name."

She gingerly shifted the baby to the other breast. " _You_ do not need to answer to him," she teased. "Go back to sleep, dearest."

He shook his head. "Not when you are at your most beautiful." Mindful of the tiny body between them, he leaned in to kiss her. His sluggish state made it easy to sink into the softness of her mouth and linger there, with tender pressure, tasting the salt on her lips. The sweet smells of skin and milk and hair wound around him, forming the familial cocoon that had become his new sanctuary.

Christine's eyes seemed brighter when he pulled away. She turned her attention back to the infant, and he leaned against the headboard to watch them. She had the baby cradled in one arm, her other hand cupping his little head. "The midwife said this is soothing," she had told him, and far be it from him to question any pearls of maternal wisdom.

"I can hardly imagine my own mother doing this." The thought left his mouth as quickly as it had materialized. Heat rushed to his face in the silence that followed.

His wife pressed her lips together, a precursor to when she spoke with great intention. "It is likely she did, though," came her soft reply.

Erik huffed. "There were alternatives."

"Less practical ones."

"You cannot know that, Christine."

She was quiet for a moment, watching the baby as his suckling began to slow. "No," she conceded. "I cannot. But she kept you alive, and she kept you close."

"And that makes her worthy in your eyes, does it?" He could not quite keep the edge from his voice, and he hated himself for it.

"That is _not_ what I said," she chided, but her irritation melted away as quickly as it had appeared. She looked to him now, her face softening. "But it could mean that some part of her, buried as it was, did genuinely care."

He blinked at her, and swallowed, and turned away so she would not see the moisture pooling in his eyes. Ridiculous, that any mention of _her_ should affect him after all these years. "What good is that to me now?" he snapped.

"Perhaps very little," she said, "but you are here. You are here and you are my husband and the father of this child, and I will forever be grateful for that." Here, he could not help but turn back to her. Her blue irises flared in the gaslight. "And you deserve those things, Erik."

"I do not—"

"You deserve them," she repeated, more firmly now.

His Christine. How she could wrench his heart from his chest and twist it so painfully, yet return it unscathed and seemingly twice its previous size, pumping new life into his veins.

"If I do—" His voice was hoarse, and he swallowed. "If I do, it is because you taught me how to love."

Blessedly, she did not try to counter him there. She flashed him the tight-lipped smile she wore when she fought back tears, and she gave a single nod.

The baby was now asleep, puckered lips still ajar where they had slipped off her breast, fingers curled tightly against her skin. Erik slid his forefinger into that tiny fist, and his son held fast.

The child would never know what it was to be unloved.


	17. Resurrection, part 2

Written for a Tumblr prompt, "a kiss in joy," and as a follow-up to "Resurrection" (chapter 14). Completely unmitigated fluff.

* * *

Erik had the apple brandy this time: of that he was certain.

He had procured it himself, and then tested a thimbleful, leaving no doubt it was the correct liquor and not the blasted Armagnac that had sent him reeling the night Christine had earned a starring role.

True, she had revived him with a kiss and confessed her affections for him ( _affections! For him!_ ), but it was a calamity he would not dare repeat. They would celebrate her magnificent opening night with the proper spirit, unhindered by the spectres of his past, and he would bask in her soft radiance and attempt to quell all thoughts of the unchecked kiss he had given her in the wake of his earlier prostration.

It had been ungentlemanly, after all—and she was every bit a lady. That was unmistakable now, swathed as she was in gold silk brocade, her cuffs and collar trimmed with tiny pearls. There was a cutout in the fabric at her sternum, an inverted V of milky skin and collarbone, and he distracted himself from it by counting the buttons down her bodice: fifteen, in total. She looked at him strangely, and it occurred to him that perhaps he ought not to stare in the general vicinity of her bodice at all.

He averted his eyes and cleared his throat. "A toast, then, to a spectacular performance."

She smiled; their glasses clinked. Brandy sloshed over his tongue and coursed through his esophagus, heady and sweet, as he snuck glimpses of her piled blonde curls in the dressing-room mirror.

"This is quite good," she said, at length. "I think I should like a bit more."

"As you wish." He topped off her glass, too caught up in his own nervousness to consider the newfound languidness of her movements, the gradual flush in her cheeks. He poured himself a bit more, too, and noticed his hand was quivering.

And then a new hand appeared, delicate and gloved, resting on his arm. "Erik?"

He looked up into those bright blue eyes and knew he was done for. "Yes, Christine?"

"Why have you not kissed me again?"

He nearly dropped his glass. "I beg your pardon?"

She frowned. "Forgive me. I just thought that you—that we—" Her face colored even more, and she turned away to feign interest in the dressing-table on which she set her empty glass.

His heart had never beat with such intensity before. "Oh, Christine," he breathed. What could he even say that would do her justice? He set his glass down as well. "Please do not mistake my propriety for lack of interest."

Her eyes lit up. Before he knew what was happening, she had given him a peck on the lips, ducking away just as quickly as she had leaned in.

He stared at her. She stared back, eyes wide, and bit at her plump bottom lip in worry. It was the last straw.

His broad hand found the back of her head and pulled her in, swiftly, selfishly, so he could taste her again. The apple brandy lingered on both their lips, but there were hints of her, too: honey and salt and warmth. His other hand remained at his side, fingers stiff and uncertain. What did one do with one's hands while kissing?

Her arms curled around his neck. She surged forward, shifting the angle of her mouth against his, swallowing the small cry of surprise that sounded in his throat. That aimless hand flew up to clutch at her shoulder for dear life, fingers curling into silk-sheathed flesh and bone. Her body was solid and warm under the dress, rivaled only by the heat of her mouth, and he could not help but run a hand over that shoulder and down her back to assure himself that she was real.

She was. And she was _still kissing him_. His hand settled at her waist and he held her, joy bursting from his chest with such ferocity that he wondered whether he might, in fact, be dying.

She separated just long enough for them both to take a breath, and then she swept her bottom lip along his: taunting, hungry. He leaned in and caught that lip between his own before releasing it with a slow, soft suction.

She peered up at him, eyes glittering. "Do you love me too, Erik?"

His hand still heavy at the back of her head, he stroked her golden hair. "Always," he rasped. "I always have."

Christine beamed at him. Her mouth, rosy and swollen, beckoned to him again. He licked his lips in hesitation, and her hold on his neck tightened.

He leaned in and kissed her again.


	18. Sanctuary

Not E/C at all, but I didn't know where else to put it. Prompt from tumblr user mothlightfilm: "modern Leroux au where after Christine escapes instead of dying Erik opens the Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary."

TW for suicidal ideation.

* * *

His affairs were nearly in order now. He'd always been meticulous about record-keeping, and it served him well on a night like this, when his insides were rent, his heart dashed to pieces on the floor.

No: an inaccurate metaphor. He had offered up his heart freely, knowing full well it would end him, end his life—but she, that golden-haired wonder: her life would start anew. And she was all that mattered.

His will had long been drawn, his papers organized and accessible. The only thing as yet unsettled was his manner of exit from this earthly plane.

All day, his shaky, cadaverous fingers had grazed the prescription bottles in his medicine cabinet; the pistol normally kept locked in its case; the shaving razor he scarcely had cause to use, save for the few sparse hairs that grew at his upper lip. The quicker, the better; yet a severe mess would certainly prolong the sale of the house.

Once again, he found himself taking stock of the medicine cabinet.

The doorbell sounded, and he stiffened. It was nearly eleven, and he was not expecting company. Surely…surely she would not…?

He opened the door to a dark-skinned and sunken-eyed man with a five o'clock shadow, his broad arms straining under the weight of a large, grizzled hound.

He was in no mood for inquiry tonight. "Ah, Ismael," he said. "You appear to have mistaken my home for a kennel. Do come back when you are mutt-free." He attempted to shut the door, but Ismael caught it with one foot and barreled into the house, where he lowered the dog onto the floor in one corner of the living room.

"He'd do better with a towel or something under him," said Ismael. The dog blinked up at him sleepily. "I found him limping outside a convenience store, and it would've been cruel to leave him."

"So you brought it here? Are you mad?"

"What shelter would be open this time of night? Besides, they'd probably just put him down. He's not exactly a spring chicken." Indeed, the creature's dark coat was thin and coarse, and it bore the drooping salt-and-pepper jowls of a hound long past its prime.

"Can't you keep it?"

"You know I'm allergic, Erik. I believe I'm developing hives as we speak."

He shifted uncomfortably. "Ismael, this is…not a good night."

Ismael frowned, his gaze sweeping over the room. "Why? Did you have plans?"

Erik hesitated. "No," he said, licking dry lips. "Not exactly, but—"

"Good. I'm going to go home and dose myself with Benadryl. I'll call in the morning to make arrangements." And with scarcely a goodbye, the Iranian left him alone with the malodorous canine.

Tense with irritation, Erik circled the unwanted visitor where it lay, weakly panting, on his hardwood floor. _Note to self: write Ismael out of will._

The dog watched him through half-shuttered eyes eerily similar to his own: not quite brown, with the golden warmth of polished amber. It was matted and dirty, with dried blood crusting one side of its muzzle, and he shuddered to consider the extent of the bacteria spreading to his living-room floor.

He fetched a faded bath towel, and with some effort, he moved the dog onto it. He had not the strength nor desire to get up, so he settled cross-legged beside the creature, knees akimbo, leaning back on outstretched arms and flattened palms.

"I can only guess at what has befallen you, my friend, but it seems you've been all but forsaken." He laughed cruelly. The dog lifted its head, sleepy but attentive enough, ears twitching at his every word. "Perhaps you'd pinned your hopes on a second chance, but things do not work out that way. Not for invalids like us. We die alone."

His arms trembled slightly in the ensuing quiet. The dog would be put out of its misery soon enough, and so, too, should he put himself out of his own. Why delay any longer?

With a tired sigh, the dog rested its chin on his knee. Erik looked down, stunned, as it fell asleep, their respective bodies warming at the point of contact.

And then, suddenly, neither was alone.


	19. Paper Hearts

A/N: Written as a birthday gift for epwhales and based on a lovely comic of his (which you can find on his tumblr!).

* * *

He bought her the kite at half price, in the late-autumn cold, from an unsavory street merchant who blinked at him in surprise: the purchase was terribly out of season, and they both knew it.

Christine, however, had insisted it was a sign. After all, had they not just discussed their lack of destination for the evening's walk? Not to mention the kite matched her favorite red scarf! And besides, Papa had never been able to afford a kite, and Erik would certainly not deny her such a simple pleasure, would he, now that she had the money?

He still insisted on paying for it himself.

The kite trails beside her as they head for the river. The air along the Seine is thick with waste and manure, the odors stronger than anything near his underground prison, so strong even his prosthetic nose cannot ward them off. But _she_ is here, eager and seemingly oblivious to the olfactory nightmare, so he swallows his nausea and watches her run the length of the nearmost bridge.

He can tell from the start that it's a wasted effort, but there's a brightness to her eyes that he would not extinguish for the world.

The day's bluster has simmered to a quiet breeze. Christine runs herself ragged trying to catch it, thick winter skirts constricting her legs, the kite lagging behind like a recalcitrant puppy on a leash. Her eager grin fades a little more with each sprint, until finally she lets her arms hang limp. She trudges off the bridge and over to the Tuileries, kite scraping against stone.

He finds her collapsed on the brittle lawn. Her cheeks are rosy, and the night air condenses her heavy breathing into steady puffs of white.

After a moment's hesitation, he lowers himself beside her, his joints protesting all the while. Together they gaze up at the night sky.

Her fingers are so close he could touch them—and _oh_ , does he want to—but her thoughts are too far away. Should he have dissuaded the purchase? Suggested they reschedule the activity for a more suitable night? Tried to fly the damned thing himself?

Regardless, he determines, it is up to him to salvage the evening. He sits cross-legged and begins to strip the red paper from its wooden backing.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Nothing of consequence," he murmurs, and he hears her shifting behind him. "No, no, don't look yet. Patience, little dove."

She sighs, and a resounding _thump_ signals her return to the ground. Only when he's finished does he allow her to see his handiwork: two rectangular paper lanterns, waiting to take flight.

They light and release the lanterns on the bridge. The lamps ascend with a red glow, pulsating like warming embers—like his heart, in that very moment. She hooks her arm through his.

It is hardly the first time she has done so, but this occasion feels…different. Softer. As though the last trace of formality between them has dissolved and she is melting into him, her head against his shoulder, and he struggles to breathe as he is reminded of the ferocity of his affection.

 _Affection_. As though such a word could contain his depth of feeling.

"I hope the lanterns come upon another couple," she says, "farther down the river. What do you suppose they would do?"

He struggles to quell the fluttering in his stomach at the word _couple_. She didn't mean it like that—not in reference to herself and present company, at any rate. Still, he finds himself asking, "What would you do?"

"I—" She looks up at him, and he cannot make heads or tails of her expression: lips frowning, but eyes…hesitant? Hopeful? Something shifts in her face, and she claps a hand to her mouth. "Oh, Erik, your mustache!"

His hand flies up to find the fake mustache dangling from his prosthetic, the adhesive having worn off. Grumbling and grateful she can't see the color of his cheeks, he yanks off the hairy thing and shoves it into his pocket. "You, ah, were saying?"

She is staring at him even more intently now. Her arm shifts and then a small, errant finger finds his thin mouth, newly exposed to the elements, and without even thinking he presses his lips to the cold skin.

"Erik," she whispers, and it is all the encouragement he needs.

He pulls her hand to his heart and kisses her, knowing full well she can feel the mad pulsation of that instrument beneath his ribs. There is no better way for her to understand how it beats singly for her, not even as his mouth slants against hers.

She keeps her hand at his chest when they part, even as she scans the sky, smiling all the while. Up above, the lanterns press together to ascend into the heavens.


End file.
